Although the initial squadron that had been sent after them had been whittled down to half its strength, the Lost Tribe fighters—which were a mixture of scavenged X-wings, A-wings, Imperial TIE fighters, and Uglies—were soon shored up by reinforcements from at least two other Sith capital ships in this unnamed system in the Peshvit Nebula. Thus, Cakhmaim and Meewalh's efforts in blowing away the Millennium Falcon's initial wave of pursuers appeared to be all for naught as they had to double their efforts in shooting down this strengthened force in between Han's tight maneuvers as he dodged his ship around the laser bolts, concussion missiles, and proton torpedoes being fired at his vessel's rear.
From the Falcon's cockpit, Han asked without looking away from the forward viewport, "Is that interdictor still keeping up with us?"
Leia looked at one of the ship's sensors; though the ChaseMaster frigate that was keeping pace with the two-and-a-half fighter squads didn't appear to be an interdictor class, it was obvious that, given how the Falcon had yet to escape from the mysterious gravity well that it was caught in, that was the vessel that was preventing their jump into hyperspace.
"Yeah, it is," Leia answered with mild distress.
Han groaned in frustration even as he banked the Falcon hard to starboard to dodge a torp, which was quickly blown to atoms by a shot from his wife.
"We can't just keep running like this!" Han exclaimed. "We gotta take out that interdictor!"
"Han, you know we can't blow up that frigate!" Leia countered. "We don't have the armaments for that!"
"No, but they do," Han replied with determination.
"What?" Leia asked.
Han's only answer was to wheel the Falcon around and head directly for the ChaseMaster interdictor; along the way, he nearly collided with an A-wing and an Ugly, which ducked out of the way just in time to inadvertently allow him to make a run for the gravity well-producing frigate. Along the way, Cakhmaim had blown away an X-wing while Meewalh took out a TIE.
"Han, I know what you're thinking, but what if Kam, Ben, and the other children are aboard that frigate?" Leia asked.
The Falcon rocked from a few hits to its rear before Han replied with, "Then reach out through the Force and find out if they're aboard that ship!"
"Alright, gimme a moment," Leia said before she settled back into the copilot seat and shut her eyes. Her concentration was interrupted only once by another hit to the Falcon's rear before she reached out.
After only a few moments, she said, "I can't feel them aboard; only Sith and their allies."
"Good," Han responded. "Then let's see if our friends still got a few more torps and missiles left."
With that, he dove the Falcon directly for the frigate even as the remaining fighters chasing them—which were down to about two full squads thanks to the Noghri—kept on their tail. An X-wing and an Ugly each let loose a proton torp for the YT-1300, and Han slowed his own ship down just enough for them to get within meters of her rear. At the same time, Leia distracted herself from her own nervousness by concentrating her fire for the ChaseMaster's engines and whittling down its shields at a merciless rate.
Then, when the time came, Han pulled the Falcon up so sharply from the frigate's hull that neither of the fired torps could match the maneuver, and they each impacted against the larger vessel's weakened shields.
And just like that, the engines blew up spectacularly, causing the frigate to lurch dead in space.
"Alright, looks like we'll be free in no time!" Han exclaimed excitedly as he swung the Falcon around and headed back the way that they were originally going. And this time, Cakhmaim and Meewalh each blew away two more enemy fighters that effectively cleared a path for them to properly escape this system via lightspeed.
But then, from the purple mists above, another ChaseMaster appeared and activated a tractor beam that stopped the Falcon cold.
Han and Leia both suddenly strained forward in their crash-webbing before rebounding back into their seats. And before either of them could figure out what had just happened, they both saw the comm blinking for their attention.
They shared a confused look before Han activated it.
"Greetings, Captain Solo, Princess Leia," an elderly but powerful voice came from the other end. "I am Grand Lord Darish Vol of the Lost Tribe of the Sith. And I welcome you aboard my vessel, the Shikkar's Edge."
As the man on the other end spoke, Han and Leia could both see that they were now being pulled up into the hangar bay of the ChaseMaster above.
"I do apologize for the way we treated you before," Vol went on, "not necessarily because we didn't know who you were, mind you. But because as you were fleeing from us, an idea came to my head, one that I think would be most educational to a... particular student aboard the Edge. Please, do not try to resist, for we are many and you are few, and you would only kill, at best, a few of my people before you, too, are struck down. So if you want to live for even longer than you already have, I strongly suggest that you cooperate. That is all."
Before either Solo could reply, the line went dead.
"Leia," Han said, "what's going on?"
"I'll try to find out," Leia said before she closed her eyes and reached out through the Force again.
A few seconds later, her eyes flashed open and she looked at Han with absolute worry.
"Ben and the others are on that ship, Han," she told him. "And he... he's embraced the dark side, Han."
He took a moment to allow his mind to pass through the shock of hearing that claim before he asked, "Then what Vol said... about us being educational to a particular student..."
Leia nodded. "He means to have Ben kill us so he can get that much closer to being a Sith."
. . .
Despite K'Kruhk adding his own efforts into the fight once he sensed his fellow Jedi's distress, the four Knights who turned on the rest of them didn't seem to be anymore challenged as they kept the five Masters and their two still-loyal Knights at bay with their lightsabers and surprising Force-powers. Indeed, at various points, Seff Hellin, Yantahar Bwua'tu, Ohali Soroc, and Barratk'l were able to telekinetically fling either Kyp, Octa, Tresina, K'Kruhk, and even Kyle back against the bulkhead behind them, and it seemed as if Doran Sarkin-Tainer and Jaden Korr were just barely getting by themselves. The turncoat Knights were also able to bat away all offenses made by the Masters with apparent ease, as if they had gained years of mastery in lightsaber combat within mere moments of believing that those around them were imposters.
And for those Jedi who still had their senses about them, the fight became that much more difficult when Zrendak Felds and the Jedi who were supposed to be helping the Millennium Falcon find the kidnapped Jedi children boarded Sinkhole Station and added their own power to the mix. At that point, all seven of the Jedi, who now found themselves fighting sixteen powerful rogue Jedi Knights instead of just four, began suffering more bruises, lacerations from glancing lightsaber strikes, and even fractures as they had to at least double their efforts in fending for not only themselves but the three Jedi—or Force-users, as Jaina Solo was thought of—still Mind Walking in the center of the meditation chamber where the battle was taking place.
Still, despite the increased intensity of the battle that they faced, Jaden was able to kill one of the newly-arrived rogue Jedi while Doran wounded another by cutting off his opponent's leg, and each Master, other than Kyp, was able to end the life of one of the other rogue Knights within minutes of their arrival.
Kyp himself, meanwhile, was able to take out two crazed Jedi before he collapsed to his side next to the Mind Walking Jaina from a lightsaber wound, courtesy of Felds himself, to his left thigh. And even amidst the battle still raging around him, he couldn't help but look up at her and regard her for a moment as Octa's words to him before all this went down surfaced back up through his mind.
Looking at her, Kyp couldn't help but quietly admit to himself that, yes, deep down, there was still a part of him that cared, if not loved, Jaina despite the corruption that she brought upon herself through her recent decisions. As ugly as she had become spiritually as well as physically, Kyp couldn't simply forget the times, good and bad, they had together during the Yuuzhan Vong War, whether it was the slap she gave him after she realized that he tricked her into attacking a civilian Vong ship to when she had briefly become his apprentice after the loss of her brother Anakin and the Fall of Coruscant. Because throughout it all, and throughout what she had done as a dark sider after her time with the Killiks, she always had that same stubborn streak in her personality that had attracted Kyp to her in the first place.
So even seeing her like this, even after all of the evil deeds that she had committed, Kyp knew that he couldn't just let her down by allowing any of these crazed Jedi around them kill her, Jacen, or Luke, no matter what pain he felt in that moment.
Thus, with renewed determination from that brief but important moment that he had, he winced as he turned himself to his back and blocked a strike from Felds—who had been busy battling Kyle for a few moments while Kyp had been reminiscing about his past with Jaina—before kicking out a boot against the Kaleesh's sternum. As Felds flew back across the meditation chamber, Kyp pushed himself up to his good leg while taking pressure off of his wounded one and gritted his teeth as he held his lightsaber up in a two-handed defensive grip.
It was just in time, too, as Felds had already recovered from Kyp's kick and was racing back toward him to renew their duel while Kyle had gone about dueling off against Nelani Dinn. Kyp held his ground as best he could as he quickly blocked all of the Kaleesh's attacks with expert deftness for several painfully long seconds.
By the end of those seconds, however, Felds managed to break past Kyp's defenses, elbowed him in the face to send him staggering back a few steps, and opened him up to a killing stroke from his blade.
But right before Felds' lightsaber could pierce Kyp's heart, Octa had rolled into the fray between her fellow Master and the Kaleesh and used her own blade to bat away the alien's. And just like that, she was back on her feet and had started to send Felds on a backpedal away from Kyp as her own ferocious strikes put him on the defensive.
When Kyp recovered from Felds' elbow to his face, he saw Octa dueling the Kaleesh for only a few seconds before he broke free of her onslaught by leaping off to the side; when he landed in a crouch, he sent a powerful Force-wave in her direction. Octa erected her own Force-shield against the attack, but it broke through and sent her flying back to skip bodily across the deck before settling in pain along her side.
As Felds rushed across to strike Octa down, she looked over at Kyp and sent him a sentiment through the Force: Keep them safe. Even her.
It wasn't that hard to know what she meant.
Still lying on her side, Octa brought up her own blade to intercept another strike from Felds, but by then, she had no room to get herself back to her feet; the Kaleesh had her in quite the compromising position.
"Octa, no!" Kyp screamed as he hurriedly stumbled toward her and Felds.
But it was too late; against the Kaleesh's onslaught, combined with the wounds that she had sustained previously in the fight, even Octa's massive mascular arms had tired enough to the point that she couldn't defend herself properly enough to keep her lightsaber's emitter safe from her opponent's blade. And once the stump of her lightsaber lay dead in her hands, Octa's head was separated from her body in the blink of an eye.
And once Kyp saw that, he froze for only a single heartbeat to see Octa's decapitated head roll away from her body before he screamed in anger and grief and rushed toward Felds from behind, forgetful of the pain caused by the wound in his thigh... and what Octa had asked of him.
But the Kaleesh had spun around in time to deflect a skewering strike from the Jedi Master and began the third round to their duel.
. . .
"Jaina, what are you doing?!" Jacen exclaimed as he struggled to tear out more of Abeloth's essence from her.
"Focus, Jacen!" Luke urged through his own struggle; he was on the opposite side of Abeloth from his nephew. "We need to kill her while we have her like this!"
"But Jaina is-"
He was cut off from saying anymore as Luke had ripped out a piece of Abeloth that prompted her to give an ear-splitting shriek that reverberated into the water of the Lake of Apparitions. Still, Luke and Jacen kept themselves from covering their ears with their hands lest they allowed Abeloth to break free of their efforts at killing her.
"You were supposed to be my King!" Abeloth exclaimed to Luke after she was done shrieking. "She said it so! She said it!"
"Who said it?" Luke asked despite himself.
"Callista!" Abeloth replied in agony.
That gave Luke pause, prompting him to cease his own efforts in fighting the entity before him.
"Callista?" he asked in shock.
The reply to that question was a tentacle to his face that sent him bounding back across the Lake. That, in turn, left Jacen to press down upon Abeloth on his own for only a mere few short seconds before he, too, was knocked back and away from her.
And when Jacen recovered, he quickly looked between Abeloth, who was now running into what he recognized to be the Mists of Forgetfulness, and Jaina, whom he saw was heading towards the Pool of Knowledge.
The Pool of Knowledge. Of course! How could he have forgotten that from when he had been with the Mind Walkers?
"Jacen!" Luke exclaimed as he brought himself back up to his feet. "Get her!" He had pointed to Abeloth as he headed in the entity's direction.
But Jacen stopped where he was and looked back at his sister, still running across the Lake toward the Pool, and he remembered that she wasn't helping him or their uncle. And it was then that he remembered why he had forgotten about the Pool.
And once he remembered, he ignored Luke and began chasing after his sister.
"Jaina, stop!" he cried. "No! You can't use it! You can't! Please! No! Don't!"
But his words seemed to stretch on into infinity, and Jaina seemed to grow more and more distant as she got closer and closer to the Pool of Knowledge.
